Recently, I’ve almost not had a day go by where a taxi driver doesn’t attempt to rip me off in my home town of Oxford, here in the UK. Just a couple of days ago during a short shopping trip to Oxford city I stopped a black Hackney cab and asked him to take me home which is about a six miles journey. On route, I noticed he had turned the meter to fare #3 which is the most expensive and is illegal. Taxi drivers are obligated to not overcharge their customers illegally and use the correct fare numbers at the correct times.

Most of the time, taxi drivers should have their meters set to fare #1, unless it’s after 10pm or all day Sunday which is fare #2. The most expensive and rarely used, (legally) is fare #3, fare #3 is for Christmas day and long trips beyond the city limits. A typical taxi driver would virtually never have to use fare #3.  It nearly doubles the cost of any reasonably long journey (10 miles or more) and adds approximately 30% to the cost of a 5 mile journey.

I challenged the driver and he blew me off with, “well, I’ve just got off the motorway” (yeah right) and then he didn’t change it! He said it would add something like 30 Pence to my 6 mile journey when in fact it added £3. When I got home, he expected me to pay full rate which of course I didn’t as I knew what it should have cost – he then argued further saying the figure I had worked out was much too low. Pure and utter dishonesty. I didn’t pay what he wanted.

My second encounter with a dishonest taxi driver of the week occurred today; I had a guy start the meter within my 5 minute grace period – so the meter was running as I got in the car off my train from London!

I’m really sick and tired of these taxi drivers ripping people off in Oxford. I’m writing this post to encourage people to make public the names and details of the criminal taxi drivers, here around Oxford.

If you’ve been ripped off, please leave the details in the comments and I’ll publish them, details like taxi numbers, type of car, the offence caused, name of taxi firm and any other details will be most helpful in actually figuring out who these people are so the council can investigate these peoples nefarious activities.

Please do not use bad language or emotional language in the comments, however hard it maybe, I will not publish the comments if they contain language as such. Just the facts. Also, do not comment if you only suspect you’ve been ripped off, you need to know beyond reasonable doubt that some guy took a chance and tried to rip you off.

Please cut and paste the layout directly underneath this sentence so the comments will follow a logical format:

a) Three number license for taxi as issued by the council for their taxi license:

b) Date & time of offence:

c) Journey – From & Too:

d) Name of taxi company that provides the radios or cars

e) What Happened? – How did the taxi driver try to illegally overcharge you:

f) Type of car, Make- Model – Colour:

g)  Any other details which may be helpful.

Here are the names and numbers of taxi firms in Oxford, should you ever need to call one. I do not know which of the companies is the best or the worst, it seems like pot luck as to whether you get a lying, dishonest toe-rag or not.

ABC Taxis: 01865 770077 / 01865 775577
Botley Taxis: 01865 423264 / 07866 423264
001 Taxis: 01865 240000
RadioTaxis: 01865 242424 / 01865 249743
Royal Cars: 01865 777333
Oxford Cars: 01865 406070 / 01865 406080
Elite Cars: 01865 250500
Star Cars: 01865 777695

I may have opted in as I tried the site, but the amount of text messages and emails I get from these people is ridiculous, one night I got fifteen emails. Yesterday, I got six text messages in three hours.

This is after I logged in and changed my settings, maybe it took a few hours to take effect, however, whatever the circumstances, Madbid.com have really annoyed me with their very aggressive marketing.

I for one, will never use them again because if it.

BT Broadband, while the service levels seem to be good, the results are as useful as a one armed trapeze artist with an itchy arse.

Really crap.

3 days waiting for an engineer, 3 visits, one engineer several hours late. 30 – 40 telephone calls. No solution to my unreliable BT broadband that’s been dropping the line intermittently since I moved into my new apartment.

Totally and utterly incompitent – however willing.

The funny part is, after each engineering visit, BT (India) call you to ask if it’s fixed and what the engineer said.  Don’t you have the facility to ring the engineer yourself? Why ask the customer what the engineer said?! It’s very unprofessional and really highlights the hard work they have put into being so incompetent, it’s paying dividends.

I trade online and have lost a small fortune because my broadband line has a knack of going down right at the point of when I want to close a trade. Think I’ve lost the equivilent value of a small car thus far, thanks for for eroding my investments BT. Nice one.

I’ve got a 4th engineer booked for tomorrow, I’m not hopeful.

For a while this week, I thought we maybe in Manama Souq,  Tehran or Cairo with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or some other Dictator  Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa in an less than appealing country or Kingdom. Instead of the UK.

If you’re enraged or wondering why I’m willing to make such a libellous or strong statement as such, here is my reason:

David Cameron, Prime Minister stated:

“So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”

WFT – OMG.

So, MR. UK Government, I ask you this: When there is an event that you don’t like or agree with, will you just shut down various forms of communication? Sort of like the Middle East does? For the record, I’m not condoning the activities of these criminal Yobs, in fact, if I was in control of the sentencing, I’d give each them ten years of hard labour. However, that doesn’t change the fact that you cannot simply shut down various forms of communication when you feel like it. It’s illegal censorship of the highest order and it should never, ever, ever, ever be allowed to happen here in this democratic, free country.

Even Boris Johnson’s technology advisor named Mike Butcher seeming surprised that the Blackberry Instant Messaging service hadn’t been shut down?! WTF! Surprised that the UK government hadn’t illegally censored the media?!

This is serous, very serious. We cannot allow this to happen when events disagree with the people and power and in turn they decide to start censoring bits of the media on a whim. The riot censorship was a test, thank God it didn’t happen but once it’s the “norm” it’s downhill from there. That’s not to say this isn’t a corrupt society already; I’m angry and deflated by recent events and the realisation over the last several years that we’re all living in a Cesspool of lies and PR spin as the rich and powerful do as they please. As they say, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”. I just wish I could bring myself to do it.

I’ve never completely “got” Twitter; it’s always felt unnatural in terms of communication to me – like Skateboarding, but with your other foot forward. It’s manageable, but awkward.

It’s no surprise that Twitters traffic is starting to level and even decline,  to me at least. What is surprising though is how quickly it’s changed from a strong degree of acceleration to a slight decline within a matter of months. I guess part of the decline is down to G+ opening up and many of the prolific Tweeters experimenting with G+ and not Tweeting as much, which draws other people off the site and towards G+ which exacerbates the downward cycle.

While Twitter is a cool gadget, I’ve never thought that it was a great way to communicate, the random illogical conversations in your stream and on the off-chance one spotted something that was interesting, you need to click back and seeing where the conversation started between the two people was sort of, annoying, and a little confusing.

I’ve never been a Twitter Fanboy and think I’ve Tweeted about thirty times in three years. However, I do find it useful when looking for breaking news. Twitter does have its uses, but I suspect it’s oversold and we’ll see an “adjustment in traffic” where it’ll lose a large number of users and then stabilise. That is, if they can make it profitable.

I’ve included a screenshot of Twitter’s traffic over the last year or so. Look for the recent decline.

Facemoods purports to be a legitimate company, although I’m not sure they are. Facemoods installed itself on my machine without my permission and when I investigated as to what and how, the explanation was that “Facemoods may have been bundled with some other software I installed”. WTF.

Now I’m not sure what Facemoods actually does, but it does feel shady in my opinion.

I really hate companies that spam you and then don’t remove you from their lists… Continuously. While I feel every legitimate company should have a chance to email once, they need to respect opt-out requests.

This email marketing  spam company allege to sell “double opt in” email lists refuses to stop spamming me – even after repeated requests to remove me from their lists.

I don’t remember “double opting in” to their list so they could spam me relentlessly. So buying a list of emails from them is unquestionably NOT legitimate and NOT double opt in.

Their websites are

www.infinityintellectualonline.info & www.infinity-intellectuals.com none of which have a website! Very shady in my humble opinion. I think they should be called infinty-unintellectuals as their direct marketing is super idiotic and gross.

I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT YOU USE THIS SPAM COMPANY.

Here is one of their regular emails that comes from a different person every other day:

==========

Hi,

 

My name is Steve Davis and I am curious to know if you have any Email Marketing or Email Lists requirement for your company to increase your ROI.

 

We are a Global Database Company with a multi-channel marketing services, specialized in B2B lists, B2C lists, Direct Marketing Lists, Consumer Lists, Tele-Prospecting Lists, EmailLists, etc. across the Globe for all major Industry verticals with a data pool of over 20 Million records with OPT-IN and double verified Emails.

 

Our Primary Services Include – Email and Data Appending, Reverse Appending, Data Cleansing, Tele-Prospecting, Email Marketing, Data Entry Projects and many more.

 

Let me know if you are interested in any of the below mentioned Pre-Packaged Global Email Lists:

 

INDUSTRY

 

COUNTS

 

INDUSTRY

 

COUNTS

 

INDUSTRY

 

COUNTS

 

American Business List

 

10 Million

 

Doctors & Physicians

 

350,000+

 

Retail List

 

100,000+

 

American Consumers List

 

60 Million

 

Dentists

 

50,000+

 

Real Estate List

 

120,000+

 

Australian Business List

 

150,000+

 

Finance Banking List

 

250,000+

 

Technology Companies List

 

80,000+

 

Australian Consumers List

 

500,000+

 

Insurance List

 

60,000+

 

Telecom List

 

25,000+

 

Middle East List

 

8,000+

 

Automotive List

 

20,000+

 

Sports & Entertainment List

 

10,000+

 

Canadian Executives List

 

250,000+

 

HR & Recruiting List

 

150,000+

 

Biotechnology List

 

7,500+

 

Canadian Consumers List

 

2 Million

 

Veterinary List

 

10,000+

 

Health Care Executives List

 

250,000+

 

Europe Executives List

 

50,000+

 

Transportation & Logistics List

 

15,000+

 

Legal Services List

 

40,000+

 

Europe Consumers List

 

2.5 Million

 

Agriculture List

 

10,000+

 

Manufacturing List

 

100,000+

 

UK Executives List

 

300,000+

 

Hospitality List

 

65,000+

 

Sales & Marketing Executives List

 

200,000+

 

Fortune 1000 companies List

 

20,000+

 

Non-Profit Org. List

 

100,000+

 

Media and Publishing List

 

40,000+

 

African Executives List

 

10,000+

 

IT Executives List

 

150,000+

 

Pharmaceutical List

 

100,000+

 

Asia Pac Executives List

 

15,000+

 

Aerospace & Defense List

 

5,000+

 

Schools, Colleges & Universities List

 

450,000+

 

Indian Executives List

 

1 Million

 

Oil, Gas & Energy List

 

15,000+

 

Government & Public Sector

 

12,000+

 

Food and Beverage List

 

6,000+

 

Construction & Materials List

 

35,000+

 

Business Services

 

100,000+

 

Advertising & Marketing Email List

 

75,000+

 

Wholesale List

 

25,000+

 

Computer, Hardware & Software List

 

100,000+

 

Our list comes with complete information such as: First Name, Last Name, Title, Company Name, URL, Telephone number, Fax number, Industry Type, Employee size, Address with City, State, Country, Zip code and Email address.

 

 

Customized Email List – We can help you in building & sourcing contacts for your specific target criteria if you can help me with the Industry, Geography, Titles criteria, I can come up with the counts.

 

Appending – If you’ve built a database of your customers, and want to start to communicate with them via email, but you don’t have their email addresses then we will allow you to build your online customer database by giving you your customers most current email address.

 

We’d like to help you to grow your business.

 

Thanks and waiting for your reply.

 

Steve Davis

 

Business Development Executive

 

Phone: 1-302-353-4442

Email: steve.davis@infinityintellectualonline.info  / stevdavis@live.com

 

Website: www.infinity-intellectuals.com

 

Before printing, think about the environment

 

To Unsubscribe from our Mailing list, please reply REMOVE to steve.davis@infinityintellectualonline.info

 

****************************************************************NOTICE *********************************************************************

 

This email message, including any attachments, may contain important information exclusively provided for intended recipients or authorized representatives of the intended recipients.  Any dissemination of this e-mail by anyone other than an intended recipient or authorized representatives of the intended recipients is strictly prohibited. If you are not a named recipient or authorized representatives of the intended recipients, you are prohibited from any further viewing of the e-mail or any attachments or from making any use of the e-mail or attachments. If you believe you have received this e-mail in error, notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the e-mail, any attachments, and all copies thereof from any drives or storage media and any printouts of the e-mail or attachments.

 

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I’ve blogged extensively about Google Panda; stating that I thought that I may have an idea as to how the “Panda” aspect of the Algo works. I’m pleased to say that one of my clients has seen a significant recovery, while it’s not entirely recovered all of the traffic that the Panda “om nom nom-ed” the gains are significant – double digit percentages.

Google Panda 2.0 wiped out nearly all my clients including this one. The strategy I implemented with this particular client was very aggressive and out of all my clients, it seems to be the only one that saw a “de-panda-er-ing” at the right time. Many of my clients have slowly recovered their traffic although that seems to be a tweaking of the algo, rather than an actual recovery.

This client in particular had a significant surge in traffic right after Panda 2.2 was rolled out. Coincidence? Maybe – but it’s rather nice nevertheless.

Here are a few traffic graphs to illustrate the possible recovery:

If anyone wants to comment – please feel free, I’m not proclaiming to know the secret, only that changes I implemented ”may” have worked.

======

6 Month View:

3 Month View:

This is a pure and clean. Unbiased, un-requested, unpaid for review.

If I had to start from scratch and learn how to become a millionaire using the internet, I would definitely use SEO and PPC as my main traffic drivers to help me achieve my goals. While SEO is slowly becoming harder, there is still a fortune to be made in the next two or three years.

For me, there is only one place to learn SEO and that’s the SEOBook community. It’s truly packed full of successful people that are the best at what they do, which is predominantly making money from Google. I’ve been around for many years now and all the other forums and communities pale in comparison. SEObook is for people that are serious about making money or are already successful and want to find out what the best techniques and tools are before anyone else does. This is sometimes a long time, if ever.

The community is incredible, the members are friendly and there are several super successful moderators that are patient and kind. No question is too noob-ish to answer, it’s really a special place. However, it’s mostly aimed at medium to advanced discussions and questions. This suits an experienced Internet Marketer better than many of the other established forums and communities which are usually filled with “noise”.

Aaron also puts out a VERY useful newsletter each month, highlighting all the important findings. It’s worth the membership just to read that newsletter, its pure gold. Aaron does most of the work and then just sends it out to his members once a month for nothing as long as you’re a member. I’m super busy and don’t have a lot of time to spend on the forums discussing things. His newsletter saves my at least twenty hours a month and there is always super things in there that 99.9% of people wouldn’t have hear of. It’s amazing value.

Finally, he offers extensive training videos as part of the membership, they are extremely comprehensive and are an excellent tool for learning or closing off some holes in your skill-set that you may not even know exist.

I get calls sometimes with people wanting to employ me as a consultant and as I don’t take on much work anymore I usually always refer them to the SEObook community and tell them that it’s the best investment they will ever make by over 100x if they are serious about learning and then applying that they have learned.

It’s a place to hang out and meet REAL people that have made some serious money and are happy to share how they did it.

If you want to join the community click HERE